1. Field of Art
The invention relates to bulk cheese cutters used in cheese stores and in small cheese packaging operations.
2. Prior Art
Bulk cheese is delivered in forty pound blocks. To reduce the blocks to consumer sizes, the blocks are cut by a knife or more commonly by a wire cutter. The cutting wire is mounted in a frame denominated a harp. In such a frame multiple wires are mounted, allowing more than one cut to be made with each pass of the harp through the cheese block.
As the number of cutting wires is increased, the force necessary to pass the cutting wires through the block increases. Hydraulic and electrical power are used in prior art to pass either a movable harp through a stationary block of cheese or to force the block of cheese through a stationary harp. Multiple cuts are made by changing direction of movement of the block.
Applicants device incorporates a reciprocally moving carriage, one stationary harp and one pivoting harp to cut a block of cheese in three perpendicular cuts, in a linear or straight line machine.